By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
Most of my presentations are targeted toward nurse leaders. If I have one, my superpower is identifying the trends and challenges we are experiencing in nursing today and then pragmatically suggesting leadership tools and strategies for nurse leaders. I never try to sell myself as an inspirational or motivational nurse’s week keynote speaker.
This month, I was invited to deliver a Nurses Week keynote and a leadership workshop for the 5th Annual Nurses Leading the Way Initiative, a partnership between the Hospital, UCH Health, and the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus. The leadership workshop part was easy for me, but the keynote presented a different challenge. What could I talk about that would be interesting to staff nurses, yet at the same time send some vital messages about what I have been seeing and hearing is happening at the frontlines of care related to the professionalism and professional identity of nurses? Could there be a way to reframe some of the challenges that leaders are struggling with, and convince nurses about the need to rethink some of the following behaviors:
- Disengagement from professional governance.
- Viewing nursing as a job and not a career.
- Frequent job changes with no clear career trajectory.
- Pushing back on feedback and seeing it as a personal attack.
- Last-minute decisions to use unplanned PTO resulting in unit staffing shortages.
- Disinterest in professional organizations.
- Failure to see specialty certification as important.
- A focus on individual needs to the detriment of teams.
- A willingness to have skin in the game and do some professional development on one’s own time.
- Insistence on quickly moving up career ladders without the necessary skills and competencies.
- Posting videos of unprofessional behavior on public social media sites like TikTok and Instagram.
With the concurrence of the sponsoring organizations, my keynote topic was Building a Strong Professional Brand. Rather than framing any of the above challenges as behaviors that present issues for health systems, I framed them as issues that would ultimately impact the brand of the individual nurse and limit career success. Since the presentation was virtual and attendance was optional, I realized that if the messages were not received well, I would quickly know by our drop-off rate.
Our audience (very well-attended) stayed with us, with a very low drop-off rate, and asked many questions. Framing professionalism and professional identity as a branding issue seemed to resonate with nursing staff, most of whom do want to advance their careers. Some key points that seemed to hit home included the following:
- A professional brand is what people say about us as professionals when we are not in the room. We all have one, but it might not be a brand we intend to project or one that will serve us well.
- We can decide as nurses what we want to be known for based on our values and career goals.
- A strong professional brand provides a competitive career advantage and helps us take ownership of our career planning.
- Knowing your strengths and limitations helps you to identify what you want your areas of expertise to be.
- Seeking feedback on how others view us is essential to developing a strong professional brand. We should seek input on what we need to start, stop, and continue doing as professionals. None of us improves without feedback.
- Your professional brand should be authentic, and your behaviors must be consistent. People will pay much more attention to what you do than what you say you will do.
- An essential component of having a strong brand is social proof of your skills and abilities. When you get certified or serve as a preceptor, you build competency and have social proof of your expertise. When you participate in shared governance, you learn new skills and gain social proof of these skills.
- Some nurses develop brands that block their career advancement. If this happens, you can shift your brand, but not without intentional work.
- Social media can be a positive and a negative factor in professional brand building. All of us should think carefully before posting something we regret later, because it may follow us permanently.
- Joining professional organizations and learning to network can help you build a brand. We all need to expand our networks beyond our organizations.
Leaders have been saying for several years that some of their tried-and-true strategies for coaching staff about professionalism just don’t work today. Shifting the lens for the discussion could be a better approach. Branding is something our younger staff understand and can see the value in.
© emergingrnleader.com 2025
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